


Safe House

by Bookshido



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: Chicago (City), Gen, Heroes of Chicago, Justin Morgan Inn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 12:27:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13190082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bookshido/pseuds/Bookshido
Summary: In a small town just south of Chicago, Logan Howell staggers into a small inn. But this inn isn't just for normal people. It's a safe house for mutants.





	1. Thunderstorms

The storms raged outside and when the lightning flashed, the windows of the inn were lit up and showed the silhouette of a woman. She was looking outside and turned from the view. Three other people were watching her, their faces in shadow. The woman began pacing and watching the storm outside.

"Clara, can you sense anyone?" she asked in a low voice.

The shortest of the three behind her shook her head and spoke. "No, not yet. But there will be soon. It always happens like this."

The woman from the window nodded to herself and there was a knock at the door suddenly. Everyone's head swung around to look at the girl named Clara.

"I swear! I just picked up his mind," Clara insisted.

The woman from the window looked at her witheringly before going to the door and opening it. A tall man fell inside and everyone inside jumped at the sudden movement. The woman sprung into motion, kneeling down and checking his vitals and preforming a visual scan of his health. Noting no sign of injury, she reached underneath him and began to lift him up. The man reacted instantly, springing up and getting her into a head lock, long silvery claws coming out of the back of his hand to be held at her throat.

All of the other people watching reacted quickly. The tallest, a man with sandy brown hair and green eyes, threw out his hand and vines sprouted from the ground, wrapping around the man's legs. Even after the man had pulled back his hand, the plants continued to grow. The next tallest, an African-American man with close cut curly black hair, struck a defensive pose with the air snapping and crackling around him. Clara took a large step back until she was pressed against the wall, eyes shut in concentration. Her light green eyes flicked open and she stepped forward cautiously.

"Logan?" she asked the man quietly. "Is that your name?"

The man holding the window woman hostage turned his stiff gaze to Clara and nodded slightly. 

Clara sighed in relief and inched a little closer. Logan stiffened slightly and his claws got closer to his hostage's throat. She gulped and met Clara's gaze with a terrified expression. Thunder and lightning flashed again, making the air around the African-American man crackle even more. Logan stiffened more and the claws were now dangerously close to the hostage's throat. The vines were still growing up around Logan's legs and were up to the tops of his thighs. Clara reached out cautiously and touched Logan's forehead. His eyes rolled back in his heads and he collapsed, nearly slicing his hostage's neck as he went down. She scrambled over to Clara, who pulled her away from the unconscious man. As the group watched, the claws in the man's hands slid back into his wrists and he looked like any other human.

Clara sighed in relief and relaxed, letting her exhaustion show. The former hostage took charge.

"Mark, Anthony, go take him to the healing rooms. Top security," she ordered. "Clara, stay guard and look for new tenants come to stay."

The other mutants sprang into action and followed the women's orders. The two men picked up Logan and carried him further into the house while Clara went to the window and closed her eyes in concentration. The former hostage got up slowly and wiped off her clothes nervously.

"Clara, do you have the house?" she asked the girl in a soft tone.

"Of course, Stella," Clara said back to her with a smile. "No need to worry."

"Good, good," Stella said with a sigh of relief. "I'll go to bed. Wake me if anyone else comes."

Clara nodded and watched the world outside the window even more as Stella went down the hall, her striking blonde hair vanishing into the darkness. Clara glanced after Stella, but shook her head to clear her vision. For a moment, she could have sworn that Stella had been glowing light green, like she was radioactive.


	2. Wake

Logan woke up chained to a table in a small room with no windows, no visible doors, and no air vents. He immediatly became furious and his claws came out to slice through the chains like they were paper. He climbed off the table quickly and began looking for the exit as his claws became sheathed again. Logan began running his fingers over the walls, looking for minuscule cracks in the seemingly smooth surface.

By the time he found a chink in the metal and successfully cut through it with his claws, four people were waiting for him outside the cell. The girl in the front was tall and thin, with honey blonde hair and dark blue eyes. Logan personally felt that she could have been a model, but her physique with lanky strong muscles suggested she was an athlete. The man standing next to her was just as tall, if not taller, with dark brown skin and close cut, curly black hair. He vaguely remembered the man from the night before and took a step back when the boy who had controlled the vines stepped forward. In the brighter light, the boy had much lighter blonde hair than the woman and was taller then everyone there. They looked strikingly similar and he assumed they were siblings. The last person was a girl who had pressed herself against the wall as soon as he stepped backwards. She had shoulder length brown hair pulled back in a simple bun and her light green eyes were stretched wide in fear.

The blonde girl stepped forward first. "Hello, Mr. Howell. I'm glad to see that you are feeling much better than you did last night."

Logan nodded and watched them carefully.

"I am Stella Marshall," she said, reaching out her hand to shake his. "This is my brother, Anthony; my cousin, Clara; and my friend, Mark."

She gestured to the blonde boy, then the dark haired girl, then the African-American man. Mark waved at Logan slightly when his name was said.

Logan took her hand and shook it firmly. "You seem to know a lot about me, Miss Marshall. I'd like to know how you came by that information."

"It pays to have a psychic in the family," Stella replied, nodding to Clara.

The girl still looked terrified.

Logan nodded respectfully to Clara who nodded back timidly.

"She examined you while you were unconscious," Miss Marshall explained. "She's becoming very talented with her powers."

"Powers?" Logan asked questioningly.

"Mutations," she clarified. "That's what their called officially, but they are powers none the less."

He nodded. "Are you all... mutants?"

"Everyone but me," Stella said, folding her arms over her chest.

Logan raised an eyebrow curiously.

"I assume you are surprised by this?" she said with a knowing smile. "Everyone is. My explanation is a tale for another time. Come, supper is ready."

Stella spun on her heel and began walking towards a steep staircase. The other mutants followed her without a word, glancing at Logan from time to time. Once they had all begun climbing the ladder, he followed quickly, anxious to go to a much more open space.

* * *

 

Logan found them in the kitchen. It was huge, like the ones in restaurants. A large pot of something simmered on the stove and there was a faint smell of tomatoes in the air. Across the room from the industrial kitchen, there was a huge table with benches on either side. The benches were covered in people of every size, shape, and color. Whole families with parents and children were present and Logan could have sworn he saw two women with green faces kissing. The majority of the group was children under what he could only assume was the age of eighteen. All of them were eating hungrily as Stella, Anthony, Mark, and Clara put a non-stop stream of what looked like gumbo in front of everyone.

Logan stood awkwardly on the side for a while before Stella called him over. "Mr. Howell, please assist me with these plates."

He hurried over and took three of the bowl/plates and began to set them in front of several children with empty bowls in front of them. He continued putting down plates until the very last person left, a young boy of about fifteen with a monstrous appetite that appeared to be a part of his mutation that gave him super speed. Clara, Mark, and Anthony left the kitchen quickly under Stella's orders to help the kids go to bed.

Logan sat down with a sigh and his feet ached for a few seconds before healing themselves into relaxation. Stella sat down with a thump next to him, sighing tiredly, but still smiling.

"Johnny has a big appetite doesn't he?" she commented jokingly.

He nodded in agreement and chuckled. "Very impressive for a boy his age."

"He's been coming here for three years now," Stella said. "You can believe how startling it was the first day. We nearly ran out of dinner."

"What was that anyways?" he questioned with a quick glance at the large stew pot.

"Would you like to find out?" she asked with a smirk. "I inherited the recipe from my grandmother."

Logan nodded and Stella got up again. She walked quickly to the pot with two bowls that seemed to come from nowhere and ladled the now thick soup/gumbo into them. With the grace of a long trained waitress, Stella set the bowl down in front of Logan and slid into her own spot.

Logan stirred it around slightly with a spoon she also seemed to produce by magic. It was very thick, with lots of rice completely soaked in what he could only imagine was tomato soup. There were chunks of some sort of white meat that looked suspiciously like hot dogs mixed in as well. Deciding to get it over quickly, Logan took a big spoonful and shoved it into his mouth. He was completely shocked when this strange mixture turned out to be absolutely delicious! Logan took many spoonfuls more before he noticed Stella watching him with an amused expression on her face.

"It's good?" she asked rhetorically before beginning to laugh.

He began chuckling as well and their laughter lasted a good five minutes before Stella began eating her own soup. She smiled as she swallowed the mouthful and sighed.

"My grandmother never taught my mother because my mother didn't have what she called 'the spark'," Stella reminisced. "But she said I did and not my two brothers."

"You have another brother?" Logan asked her curiously.

"Yes," she said with a scowl. "But he has essentially disowned me because I help what he calls 'freaks'."

Logan began scowling himself. "Stupid reason to disown someone."

Stella nodded and continued eating. "I haven't talked to him in almost six years," she said softly. "Not even a card on my birthday or at Christmas."

As if on cue, it began to rain, the drops making loud pinging noises on the chimney flue. No one said anything for a while.

"I'm sorry," Logan said quietly, taking another spoonful of the soup. "I know what you're going through."

"He's even more cruel because he cut off Anthony as soon as Anthony told him he was able to control plants," Stella muttered. "Want a drink? Talking about this pisses me off and I need a beer."

Logan nodded and took their bowls to the sink while she brought out two beers in bottles. He rejoined her at the table and popped the cap without looking at the label. Logan took a small sip and smiled.

"Elephant Beer?" he asked her to check.

"Of course," Stella said after she took a long gulp. "Only the best."

Logan took a huge swig himself and nodded. "Sorry about bringing up your brother."

"It's fine," she said, waving it off.

Stella was visibly relaxing and anyone could see the one beer cheered her up and helped her chill out. Logan found this endearing and took another swig. He decided to change the subject and find out more about this place.

"So, what is this place?" Logan asked her smoothly.

"Officially it's called Justin Morgan Inn, but in the mutant community, it's called The Safe House," Stella explained. "We don't cater to humans and have some really powerful psychics in the area shading it so only mutants can see it."

Logan stayed silent as he thought about what was going on.

"We also offer full-time residency to powerful mutants who can't control their powers or are too dangerous to be around humans," Stella said with a sigh. "Very few choose to stay with us because they like to move around. We should hurry and get upstairs to the main quarters. I can introduce you to our 'staff'." She stood tiredly and put her empty bowl in the sink. Logan did so as well and followed her out of the room and up two flights of stairs.

Up on the third floor, there was what looked like a huge dorm room with a main area that doubled as a kitchen and a living room. Anthony, Mark and Clara were all busy with other things while four other people bustles around. Clara was working at a table with some notebooks and a textbook while Anthony and Mark worked on hooking up a brand new gaming system to the large flat-screen. A pale blonde girl dressed all in black sat in a dark corner reading a book while a Hispanic girl with almost stringy brown hair meditated in another open corner with three candles around her. Every time either Mark or Anthony cussed, she opened one bright blue eye in annoyance before returning to her meditation. In the kitchen, two people were giggling and joking with each other they kneaded bread. The girl and the boy both had brown hair and fair skin. They were both almost covered in flour and they kept throwing flour at each other. Stella chuckled to herself when she saw them and took another sip. 

"Rachel and Michael," she said with a smile. "They came in within weeks of each other and hit it off almost immediately. They've been here two years and started dating about a year ago. The two have even been talking about a wedding. And to top it off, they were born in the same week."

"And they're mutants?" Logan asked as he watched them.

"Of course," Stella said, laughing. "They also have nearly identical abilities. They can shift into an incorporeal form that no one else can see. They can only see each other in that form. They walk through walls, fly, are essentially ghosts. They call each other 'soul mates' as a little play on words."

Logan kept watching the young couple as they screwed around. Rachel kept smearing flour on her boyfriend's face and he kept doing the same to her. They seemed surprisingly happy. Logan had never seen a mutant couple so happy and so in love with each other. He had never thought that such a relationship  could exist in such a turbulent world where mutants were beginning to be hunted down.

"I take it you have never seen a couple like this before," Stella said quietly.

"No, I haven't," Logan said, still watching.

He jumped slightly when the girl vanished suddenly and her boyfriend began laughing.

"Very funny!" he said before vanishing himself.

Within seconds, clouds of flour were chasing each other around the room. The girl who had been meditating scowled and collected her meditation equipment. She headed to a hallway and into a room that was lit with yellow lighting.

"I might as well introduce everyone and they can explain their mutant abilities," Stella said loud enough for everyone to hear. She pointed to the blonde girl in the corner. "That's Elise."

The girl turned to face him, revealing a startlingly pale face with black eyeliner and lipstick. She looked depressed and when she spoke, it was as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

"I see dead people," she whispered.

Logan dropped his gaze and shuddered as the girl turned back to the corner and began muttering to herself again.

"What's her power," he asked Stella.

Frankly, Logan thought the girl was crazy.

"She can see the spirits of dead people," Stella said quietly. "They seek her out and ask for advice. Anyways, the girl who left earlier is Jessie. She has a... unique power. You'll have to talk to her to learn about her mutant ability."

Logan nodded. Most mutants he met preferred to tell people about their powers directly, not to have their powers learned about through others. Logan was one of these mutants, but he preferred to know if an ability could kill him. It was just common courtesy.

"When you're ready to talk to Jessie, her room is down the hall and to the left," Stella instructed. "Be sure to knock first. She doesn't take too kindly to intruders."

"Sounds like we'll get along," Logan said with a snort.

Stella began laughing. "Probably. And you know Anthony and Mark. They're pretty busy right now."

The two men made vague gestures of greeting while still hooking up the gaming station.

"Anthony, like I said, can control plants," she said, gesturing at him. "Mark has electricity based powers that we're still trying to figure out entirely." 

She stepped away from him and into the center of the room.

"That's everyone who is a permanent resident. Welcome to the Heroes of Chicago, Logan." Stella began smiling widely. "Welcome to the family."


End file.
